Video prototype questionnaire and feedback

After testing the video prototype in group, I got my group member to fill out my questionnaire. Through their feedback, I found out all of them understand how to play the game and they don't think the game system is too complicated, instead they think it is fun to have the system. But they also suggested that scissors can be a risk for young kids, so maybe I should find alternatives to replace the scissors. Moreover, they also questioned about the cost of wires because they cannot be reused after cut, I'll try to come up with a resolution for this issue.

Week 4 exercises

Exercise 1

In my driving experience, I noticed that when I drive in the morning, I usually sit very straight because I’m pretty energetic. And after a whole day of working, I’m tired so I can’t seat so straight, therefore I always need to adjust my back mirror in order to monitor the traffic at my back. Sometimes I only find out the angle of the back mirror is not right when I'm already driving very fast on a motor way, and it is pretty distracting to adjust and find the right angle for my it. So I want to design a small mechanism that can adjust the back mirror to a preset angle by pressing a single button. So I can drive to uni in the morning as usual, and when I need to drive home in the evening, I just need to press the button and a small motor will drive the lever behind the back mirror and adjust it to the preset angle which is called tired mode.

The prototype will be a mixed reality prototype based on a goggle simulator, which will simulate how the back mirror gonna react to the pressing of the button, and the view in the mirror you can see before and after the adjustment. The button it self will be a real button that can be pressed, when the user press the button they’ll see how the back mirror gonna change angle, and how the view in the mirror changes.

Exercise 2

Horizontal prototype:

Vertical prototype:

The vertical prototype of the alarm clock will be a simple app on an iOS device which emphasis on the demonstration and testing of the daisy chain alarm and shake to snooze, details of other feature of the alarm will not be demonstrated. Users will be able to interact with the app and have an in depth understand of those functions. The basic interface of the app will be similar to what was showed in the horizontal prototype.

Diagonal prototype:

The diagonal prototype will be an app on an iOS device as well, it's basically the combination of the horizontal and vertical prototype. There are two set up scenarios for the prototype which are "a uni student set up a daisy-chain alarm before he go to bed, which would ring every 10 min after the set up time if the alarm fails to wake him up", and "if he want to have a bit of snooze so he shake the phone and the alarm will ring in 20 minutes". The prototype will demonstrate all the interface of the alarm, but only the function involved in those scenarios will be showed in detail and allow complete user interaction.

Documentation of video prototype - The Hurt Locker

The hurt locker is a mixed reality and computer game. The idea of this game actually came from two games we all know, the board game battleship and the computer game minesweeper. Battleship is a very fun game but seems there are too many pins, and it’s pretty much random guessing when we play the game, making it less exciting. However, minesweeper provides us a lot of spaces to use our logic inference, but it can be a little too complicated for young kids, I actually never bothered thinking about what does those numbers mean when I was young.

So how can we find a very simple game which involves a little bit of thinking for young kids. With that question in mind, I decided to create a new game, which uses a new form of interaction method on a very simple 3×3 interface. I combined the featured element of battleship and minesweeper to create this new game called The Hurt Locker. Obviously, the game is to disarm the bomb and stop it from hurting people, and it’s a game for two players. To make it more fascinating, I decided to implement a controller which is a panel with a 3×3 wire set that allow the player to actually cut the wires, and LED bulbs to tell them what kind of wire they just cut.

Each panel of the players is connected to their own computer. Before the game starts, they need to designate a bomb wire for their opponent which would detonate the bomb when cut, and two disarm wires which would disarm the bomb when both of them are cut. This done through a software installed on their own computer. The rest of the wires are called blank wire, cutting a blank wire will have no effect to the bomb, but the yellow LED bulb on the panel will blink, letting you know that you cut a blank wire. Likewise, the green LED will blink when you cut a disarm wire.

Before you cut each wire, you get a chance to ask your opponent a true or false question, like “is the bomb wire in row 1, or is B2 a disarm wire. This will help you to locate the bomb or disarm wire, and try to disarm the bomb faster then your opponent does, which will lead you to victory of the game.

                                        Testing the game concept on a pen and paper prototype

Hand gesture remote control prototyping

Usually when we interact with a TV, a series of buttons may have to be pressed in order to implement a simple function, like play movie from the usb drive plugged into the TV. For me this is a very outdated way to control my TV, so I would like to design a digital mechanism to replace the old remote control. Imagining if we can use hand gestures to change channels, adjust volume and access the movie in the usb drive plugged into the TV. There will be a built in receiver integrated to the TV and software to analyze the hand gestures.

The prototype to test the function will involve an enclosed headset with built in screen and visual simulator. Audiences just need to put on the headset and will find themselves in a room with a TV. They can swipe their hands to left or right to change channels, up and down to adjust volume etc. The simulator will recognize their gesture and simulate how it would work in reality. This will give the audience a real feeling about how the gesture control works and evaluate if it is effective.